All over the airport and through 'The Wood', to Grandmother's house we go

I am writing this post in the comfort of my parent's home, looking out the window at the snow covered lawn, drinking hot tea, listening to eruptions of laughter from friends and family playing games in the basement, all sorts of delicious smells coming from the kitchen... ah, this is Christmas. Things seem as though we fell out of a Christmas story book. However, we have gone through quite the ordeal to get to this point, let me tell you!

Our flight was scheduled to leave from LAX at 9:52 am, Sunday morning (Dec. 20). We arrived at the airport more than 1 1/2 hours before our departure time, had all of our luggage in tow, and even managed to score a Starbucks -to tie us over. :) Our flight was on US Airways - terminal 1. We were the first to be dropped off (off the shuttle) and got in line to check in. It was a long line but moved fairly well so we weren't too discouraged at this point. However, this feeling of excitement and enthusiasm for traveling would soon be a fleeting memory. When we got up to the kiosk to check in we were informed the we needed to check in at United Airlines, not US Air (apparently the flight was operated by United or something... I'm still a little fuzzy on those details). So we had to go downstairs to baggage claim, go outside, across the street, catch the 'A' bus to take us to terminal 7 where we would then go back upstairs and check in at United. (Mind you, we had 3 suitcases, 6 carry on/personal baggage, a stroller and a baby to tote around). We made it to United's terminal about 9:10 and raced to the kiosk to check in. Well, we weren't able to check our bags because it was less than 40 minutes before the flight was to take off. We were told we needed an agent to check us in but no agent was available so we were told to wait in the 'full service' line. And in line we waited.... for 2 hours. Obviously, we missed our flight. When we were finally able to talk to an agent we were told the only thing they could do for us was put us on 'standby' on a United flight. If we wanted to change our flight we would have to trek back to US Airways (terminal 1) and wait in line there to see if there was anything they could do. The agent was hopeful so we checked our bags and proceeded to security. We made it to the gate and Matt talked to another agent to see what our odds were to get on that flight... she practically laughed in his face. Not a good sign. We were numbers 36,37, 38 on the standby list and the agent had been able to get 2 people to fly standby to Chicago all day (out of over 60). Not good. So we waited. We waited with an 8 month old baby, 3 diapers and one bottle left. Not good at all. We watched three more flights take off for Chicago and watched our names go from the 36, 37, 38 to 45, 46, 47 (apparently they give priority to people who pay more for their tickets, so since we scored a good deal on our tickets, we kept getting pushed to the back of the list). We were NEVER going to get out of there. Finally, Matt made the executive decision to move our little party back to terminal 1 and try our luck with US Airways. So, again, down to baggage claim, outside to catch the 'A' bus, back to terminal 1 to wait in line for another 2 hours so see if there was anything they could do. The best option was to catch a flight to Chicago (with a 3 hour lay over in Vegas) the next day. My parents graciously put us up in a hotel that night so we didn't have to drive 90 miles back to Beaumont only to come back to LAX the next morning. Our hotel was in Inglewood - also referred to as 'The Wood' (hence this post's creative title)- and is pretty much the ghetto. By the time we got to the hotel, I had 2 diapers left, desperately needed to nurse Luke, was hungry, tired and extremely discouraged. Matt literally had to run through 'The Wood' looking for a place to buy some diapers and food.

AH! We laugh now as we somehow managed to survive this misadventure. But if I never have to go through that again, I'll be happy.

The diapers Matt managed to buy at the corner market store looked as though they'd been there for 10 years. No pampers or huggies here! At least they did the trick.

Waiting in the hotel -MUCH more comfortable than waiting in the airport!

The hotel didn't have a portable crib or anything for Luke (the best they could do was give us some toothbrushes since ours were packed and on their way to Chicago). We tried to have him sleep between us in the bed but that didn't work so well. He ended up sleeping on my shoulder the majority of the night. On top of everything else, Luke ended up getting sick! I didn't have the thermometer but I know he had a fever and was just miserable... which meant I was pretty miserable as well. Luckily, I had the baby tylenol in my purse so Matt didn't need to make a midnight run through the ghetto looking for meds!

Trying to nap

Finally sleeping, but not for long

Waiting in the airport Monday morning.

We finally made it to Chicago about 10:30 Monday night. We were all exhausted and hungry but happy to finally be here. Luke was still a pretty miserable little guy. He ran a fever all night and was fairly clingy and lethargic all Tuesday - NOT at all like the 'normal' Luke. My mom and I ended up taking him in to the health clinic to find that he has ear infections in both ears and what looks to be a pretty sore throat. Poor baby! The doctor prescribed Azithrmycin. (I am allergic to Amoxycillin so we thought we'd avoid that drug, just in case). Well, last night as I was getting Luke ready for bed, I discovered a rash all over his chest, stomach, neck and around his hairline! We called the clinic and were told that it is most likely a reaction to the medication. Honestly. On top of it all, Matt is just now feeling better and I am now coming down with a cold myself. Ugh. Merry Christmas to the DeBoer family.

We're praying that things start to turn around for us this trip. So far, not so good. But again, we are thankful to be with family to celebrate the birth of our Savior. After all, He is the real reason for the season.

We hope that all of you out there have a wonderful (and healthy) Christmas!

My son: The escape artist

I usually wait to take a shower until Luke is napping. However, it is not always possible to squeeze in a shower with everything else I put off to accomplish during nap time. Well, Wednesday was one of those days that I had too much to do AND Luke decided that 30 minute naps was all he would grace me with. So, if I wanted to get a shower in I'd have to resort to plan B - strap Luke in his baby seat next to the shower, surround him with toys and entertainment items, and hope that I can at least get the shampoo out of my hair before he starts squirming/whining to be released.

At least that was my plan. It has worked in the past, so why wouldn't it work now? (I have so much to learn when it comes to being a mother to a very active baby boy.)

I started the shower to get the water warmed up, strapped Luke into his seat, surrounded him with toys and even a snack of Cherrios, then left the room for one minute. Upon my return, I found that Luke been able to wiggle his way out of the straps (he had leaned forward enough to tip the chair then walked on his hands - picture a wheelbarrow race- to get his legs out of the straps) and was crawling into the shower. Mind you, the water was running and Luke, fully clothed, thought it looked like fun.

I probably should have stopped him and told him "no" but instead, I grabbed the camera and had a Kodak moment.... and then jumped in with him, taking a shower with my clothed, soaked 8 month old splashing and having a glorious time at my feet. It's a win-win situation. :)

The scene of the crime - notice the buckled straps

Pure Delight!

Done already?!? But I'm not even wrinkled up yet?

(sorry, I couldn't resist posting the butt shot)

Again with the videos

I'm starting to think that I won't make my goal of having our blog fully updated by the time we leave for Chicago and the beginning of our Christmas vacation. Life has gotten just a wee bit busier at the DeBoer house lately, all thanks to the fact that Luke is now crawling around and pulling himself up on everything - chairs, coffee table, house plants....

He has been scooting for quite awhile now but recently seemed to figure out that he can cover more ground in less time if his belly is off the floor. He has a unique little crawl though- he has his right leg bent and keeps his left leg straight, so its as if he has a peg leg crawl (not sure I'm describing this quite right. I've been trying to catch it on video but so far I haven't been successful). Now that he can move around a bit faster and pull himself up on furniture he is into everything WAY MORE than before, if that was possible. So, my days home basically consist of telling him "no", taking things away from him that he shouldn't have, pulling objects out of his mouth, wrestling with him to change his diaper, picking up after him, comforting him after he's donked his head for the thirteenth time on the table legs.... It's a glamorous life, really. In all seriousness I do enjoy the time I have with him at home. I know these days are precious and will soon be a memory so I won't complain (too much) about a messy house or not getting the luxury of a shower everyday. It's all worth it.

I'm still hoping that I can carve out some time to post some of the pictures I've taken recently but for now a few more videos will have to do. :)

A few old videos

As I mentioned before, I'm trying to get our blog fully updated before Christmas. So far, so good. We'll see if I can keep this up.

When we first bought our Mac I had trouble downloading our videos off the camera. I blamed the computer, of course, and quickly got frustrated. Later, I figured out that it was an operator error. (insert sheepish smile here). Happily, I have now learned how to download videos and upload them again onto our blog - for your viewing pleasure. The videos are a bit dated. Hopefully, I will catch up to 'present day' videos before too long! :)

Enjoy

Belated Birthday Post

I am trying to get caught up on all the events that I want to blog about before we leave for Chicago. At least that is my goal. We'll see if I am actually able to reach it.

It was Charles' 15th birthday the week before Thanksgiving (Nov. 19). Charles is such an old soul that it was hard for me to remember that he was only 14 when he first got to our house. It still amazes and impresses me how these boys are able to go through high school in another language and entire oceans away from their parents and everything familiar to them. I know I couldn't do it, at least not as a teenager. So, Matt and I try to do what little we can to make them feel comfortable and special, especially on their birthdays and other holidays.

Charles with his birthday cake, cookie cake, and presents

(we got him a basketball and chocolates - sorry no pictures).

Blowing out the candles

I asked Charles what he would like to do for his birthday several times. He kept responding with, "I don't know". Finally, I realized that he may feel awkward requesting something special for his birthday, so I threw out a few suggestions/ideas. When I mentioned that we could go bowling, he asked, "what is bowling?". After explaining it as best I could, Charles said that he had heard of the sport but had never gone bowling before. So bowling we went! Matt and I haven't been bowling in... gosh, I don't know, years at least! It was fun for us to go out as a family and have some friendly competition. :)

Charles and Luke at the bowling alley

Luke, obviously, didn't bowl but he DID like investigating the bowling balls

"So this is where the fingers go"

Matt

Jung

Charles

Charles, again.

Matt, who is a self proclaimed 'terrible bowler', bowled a fantastic game our second round. If look closely at the picture you can see his first 3 frames were strikes, followed by 2 spares and another strike. I think his next few frames were pretty much the same - either a strike or a spare! The rest of us did not do quite as well but it was a fun time overall. We will definitely go again.

missing photos

I wanted to post a few of those pictures from our Lynden trip that didn't upload when I wrote that other post. I didn't want to leave them out!

Sleeping on Daddy's shoulder. Must have been nice and snug in that snowsuit!

(I just HAD to rub it in again, Matt, sorry.)

Getting ready to open Christmas presents.

Jung's gift from Matt's mom...

Sheet music for piano. He was pretty happy!

Charles' gift from Matt's mom...

A football.

Apparently, footballs are hard to come by in Taiwan so Charles was thrilled with his present.

Matt, modeling his new sweater from Eric.

Luke's very first Christmas present! (He had just woken up so he was a little out of it. He quickly regrouped and was soon ALL excited about the gifts - mostly the paper and bows!)

Uncle Eric helping Luke open a present...

Luke was too excited about his new train from Grammie to even notice that Candace had put 2 bows on his head!

"open it up already, I'm ready to play!"

"Next!"

Playing with the ribbons

Charles gave Mom DeBoer a fan from Taiwan and Chinese candies.

Luke trying to feed Charles a ribbon.... Luke, not everyone likes to eat paper items, sorry.

Teething Woes

Luke is teething yet again. His two top teeth are causing all the pain and discomfort this time. He doesn't seem to really be bothered by it except at night - go figure. Last night I was up three times with him. I gave him Tylenol but that only lasts for 3-4 hours and I don't like the idea of giving him Tylenol every time he wakes up during the night. Even after giving him Tylenol it seems that the only thing that will settle him back down so he (and I) can get some sleep is if I feed him. So, it seems as though we have regressed to the newborn stage where he is waking and wanting to eat every 3-4 hours throughout the night! UGH! This is where my love/hate relationship with baby books comes into play. I fall victim to reading all the appropriate baby books at times like this - when I am frustrated, tired and at my wits end and don't know what else to do. The trouble is I end up thinking 'if I just read this particular book and do what is recommended by this esteemed author then the sun will shine, birds will sing and hallelujah, the baby will sleep or eat or whatever it is I am concerned about at the time'. Boo, I say. Boo.

If it were only that easy. The problem with reading these books is that when I am up at 4 am (for the third time that night and need to be up in 2 hours) I think back to what the baby books say I should be doing and end up feeling worse about the situation...much worse. I have tried several different strategies to get Luke to sleep through the night with little to no success. I am not strong enough to let him cry it out. Well, I have let him cry it out when I am extremely frustrated and annoyed but I hate it and it doesn't work. That, and I am not consistent enough to let him cry it out for days on end. By the third or fourth night of 'crying it out' I am exhausted and in tears myself and then end up feeding him just so that I can get some peace and sleep. I think the most frustrating thing is that he was sleeping through the night at 5 months and now has been up several times a night for the past 6 weeks. Grrrrr.

In my better moments, I remind myself that "this too shall pass". And then I hide the baby books so I am not tempted to read them again and further torture myself. Ahh, motherhood.

A Merry Thanksgiving in Lynden

A belated Happy Thanksgiving and an early Merry Christmas to all of you! We were able to celebrate Thanksgiving and Christmas (a bit early) in Lynden, WA with Matt's family. It was SO wonderful to see everyone again and meet some new additions! This was Matt's brother's first time meeting Luke~ which was so great. We also got to meet Eric's girlfriend, Candace, Andrea's boyfriend, Jordan, and introduced the fam to Jung and Charles. We were able to be together from Tuesday (Nov. 24) through Sat. (Nov. 28) and, as expected, the time flew by but we cherished every moment together. I have LOTS of pictures (and more that for some reason didn't upload this time - something to look forward to) so I'm going to let the pictures do the talking rather than write paragraphs upon paragraphs about our time in Lynden. So without further adieu...

My parents bought a snow suit for Luke (for our trip to Chicago for Christmas). Its a bit big for Luke right now but still works. We had to try it on him before packing it - Matt was convinced we wouldn't need it in WA, laughing at me, saying that I was being a crazy paranoid mother. We ended up having to call Matt's mom to make the final decision about the need for it - she agreed with me (as usual) and into the suitcase it went. Good thing too, we ended up needing it a few times! In your face, Matt. :)

Luke's first plane ride! He did VERY well on the plane. I was pretty nervous about it. I got the 'ok' from Luke's pediatrician to give him a small amount of benedryl before taking off, just to help him sleep. I'm not convinced it worked but he did sleep for the first 45 minutes. He probably would have slept longer but my arm was positioned in such a way that it was aching so badly and in trying to pass him over to Matt, Luke woke up and that was the end of that.

He was into EVERYTHING on the plane in his waking hours. Luckily we sat by some new grandparents who told me that they were not bothered by him at all and rather enjoyed his playing on the plane.

Luke and Grammie reading a book. The cat, Cali, decided she needed some story time too apparently. Luke was not so sure what to make of the cat taking over Grammie's lap.

The whole family playing scrabble. Notice that Matt, Eric, and Jordan are all being goobers in this picture. Ahh, family.

Meeting Uncle Eric (or Uncle 'E' as Eric refers to himself)

Uncle 'E' feeding Luke - his first time feeding a baby. LOVE the look on his face!

"What, that's it? No pumpkin pie?"

Playing with Uncle Eric

Playing with Auntie Andrea

I'm not sure if I meant to capture Luke's face on camera or not, but I thought this picture was too funny to leave out of the blog. (If you can't tell, Luke is working on filling his britches)

Uncle Eric's first time changing a diaper! We saved the poopy one for him! Candace got the whole thing on video and the commentary is hilarious.

Eric's face during the process -priceless.

Relaxing, watching football, waiting for the feast to be ready

Mom DeBoer, hard at work in the kitchen.

Mom DeBoer and Jordan putting some of the final touches on our Thanksgiving meal

Luke's First Thanksgiving! In his highchair observing as all the food is put on the table. MMMM

The spread! I am getting hungry all over again.

Everything was delicious! We all over ate, then rested a bit, and ate more later!

Matt, Eric, Candace, Andrea and Jordan went to watch the Broncos game on Thanksgiving evening. It wasn't on regular television so they had to research places that were open on Thanksgiving in order to find a place to watch the game. While they were rooting on the Broncos, Mom DeBoer, Charles and I played scrabble and watched Luke explore around Grammie's house a bit more.

Luke was helping Grammie keep score. He was more interested in sucking on the pen I think.

We figured that since we were playing with letters and forming words, we should introduce Luke to his letters too! Grammie has some books just for Luke under her coffee table - we was very into it.

Well, maybe more into eating it. (It was Thanksgiving after all.)

On Black Friday we avoided shopping and the crowds but ventured out of the house anyway. I can't remember the name of the place we went to at the moment. I'm sure it'll come to me as soon as I publish this blog, oh well. It was probably the nicest day we had the whole time we were in Lynden so we bundled up (grateful for Luke's snow suit once again), got some coffee at Woods, and went for a walk along the pier.

It was beautiful, chilly, but beautiful.

Thankful for Woods coffee.

More scenic pictures

The whole family. Good looking bunch... this year's Christmas card perhaps?

We attempted to get a family photo of just us as well. It took a few shots, but we ended up getting a decent one.

I love this photo. This was about 2 minutes before Luke fell sound asleep on Matt's shoulder~ I have a few adorable pictures of that but they didn't upload this time. oh well.

On Saturday we went down to Seattle and wandered around Pike Street Market.

We had to stop by the booth where they throw the fish!

It was such a great time! It was hard to say goodbye, as usual, but we are very thankful for an amazing family and the opportunity to get together and celebrate the holidays. Here's to looking forward to many more holiday celebrations to come.